# Self-imposed rules and doing it alone > Written rules, self-set tasks, deadlines and accountability apps: what people actually do alone, and an honest account of why self-spanking rarely works. - Canonical URL: https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/self-imposed-and-solo/ - Section: Safety and practice - Updated: November 2026 (2026-11-01) - Audience: consenting adults over 18 only. Everything on this site concerns consenting adults over 18. Most people spend far longer with this on their own than they ever spend with another person. Years, in a lot of cases. Very little is written about that stretch, and what does exist is either wishful or slightly sad, so here is a plain account of what works alone and what does not. --- ## In short - Self-spanking rarely satisfies, because you cannot surprise yourself and you always pull the stroke. - The part most people want is handing control over, and that is the one thing a solo version cannot supply. - Written rules, set tasks and fixed deadlines do work alone, because their power comes from committing in advance. - Adding one person at a distance who simply reads a weekly report changes solo practice more than any app. Almost everybody starts here. You work out something about yourself, you have nobody to tell, and you spend a long time in a private arrangement with your own head. Some people are here for a fortnight. Plenty are here for a decade, and some choose to stay, which is a legitimate position rather than a waiting room. So here is an honest account of which parts of this can be done alone, because the answer is not none and it is not all. Everything here is for adults over 18. ## Self-spanking, honestly It mostly does not work. People try it, feel faintly ridiculous, conclude there is something wrong with them, and rarely hear the actual explanation, which is mechanical rather than personal. First, you cannot surprise yourself. A great deal of what makes a stroke land is not knowing exactly when it is coming or how hard, and the gap before it is where most of the effect lives. When your own arm is holding the hairbrush, your body has full advance notice and braces automatically. The same stroke delivered by somebody else and by you are not the same event. Second, you pull it. Not deliberately. The arm will not deliver full force into its own body and no amount of resolve gets round that. The angles available to your own hand are poor too, which is why the reachable areas tend to be the ones you should be avoiding: the back of the thigh, the hip, the tailbone. If you are going to do it anyway, and people do, keep to the fleshy part and stop well before you start compensating for a pulled stroke with something harder than you would let anyone else use on you. Third, and this is the real one. What most people want is not the sensation. It is not being in charge for an hour. That is set out at length on [power exchange](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/why/power-exchange/), and once you accept it, the problem with the solo version becomes obvious: you are in charge for the entire thing. You choose the implement, the number, the moment to stop. The one condition you were after is the one condition that cannot be present. None of which makes it worthless. Some people use it as a ritual, and ritual does something on its own. But if you have tried it and found it hollow, the fault is in the arrangement rather than in you. > **One thing not to do.** Do not build anything that removes your own ability to stop. Rigs, self-restraint, timers attached to something you cannot reach. The whole safety system when you are alone is that you can end it instantly, and people have got themselves into serious trouble improvising around that in an empty flat with nobody due home. ## What does work: rules you write down This is the part that genuinely transfers, and it surprises people. A written rule works on you even though you wrote it, because the mechanism is not authority. It is that you made the decision at a moment when you were thinking clearly, and your later self is left arguing with a decision that already exists rather than making a fresh one while tired. Economists have written about this for decades under the heading of self-control and pre-commitment, and the finding is consistent: people do better when they arrange things in advance so that the lazy option is harder to take. It is a simple trick and it needs nobody else in the room. What works in practice is much smaller than people write on their first attempt. - Three or four rules, not fourteen. Everybody starts with fourteen. - Each one measurable by somebody who is not you. "In bed by half eleven" passes. "Be more disciplined about sleep" does not. - A fixed review date written next to them, so the set is temporary rather than a life sentence you drafted on a Sunday. - Something written down when a rule is broken. A line of explanation, dated. The record is what turns a private intention into something with a history you can read back. [Rules and agreements](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/discipline/rules-and-agreements/) covers how to write them properly, and all of it applies with one person. ## Impositions and tasks Lines, essays, corner time and set tasks work better alone than a spanking does, because their effect comes from duration and tedium rather than from who imposed them. Six hundred lines is six hundred lines whoever set the number. The condition is that the number is fixed in writing before the moment it applies, since deciding afterwards is how a hundred lines becomes forty and then a paragraph. An essay is the one I would recommend to anyone doing this alone. Five hundred words on why the rule exists and what happened, handwritten, no editing. It is dull and slightly humiliating and it works, which describes every effective imposition. More on the format in [lines and impositions](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/discipline/lines-and-impositions/). ## Reporting to somebody at a distance If you take one thing from this page, take this. The single change that makes solo practice hold is adding one person who is not in the room and who reads a short message. It can be very light. Somebody you write to on a Sunday evening with a paragraph about the week, who replies briefly. They do not have to be a partner or local, and there does not need to be anything physical about it at any point. What they supply is the thing you cannot supply yourself, which is being observed. Rules kept for an audience of one that is also you are intentions with better paperwork. The machinery is on the [accountability](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/discipline/accountability/) page, and the hazards of running it entirely remotely are on [long distance](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/long-distance/). The main one is that somebody who only ever sees your reports has no way of knowing whether the rest of your life is going well. ## Apps, and what they can and cannot do There are real tools for the compliance half of this and they are not kink-specific, which is arguably their advantage. StickK lets you write a commitment contract with a referee and a financial stake, including the option of sending your money to a cause you dislike if you fail. Beeminder tracks a target and charges you an escalating pledge each time you fall off it. Money on the line works for a lot of people, and if the rule you keep breaking is about hours or habits rather than anything erotic, one of these is a more honest solution than pretending a fantasy will fix it. What an app cannot do is care. It does not notice you, it is not disappointed, and it will never ask how the week was. For some people that absence is precisely the relief, since the whole thing stays private and mechanical. For others it is the entire point missing, and no amount of streaks and badges will substitute for one person reading a message on a Sunday. ## The bit that is harder alone Shame concentrates in private. With a partner, however awkward the conversation was, somebody else has looked at this and not recoiled, which does more to normalise it than any amount of reading. Alone, nothing corrects the story you tell yourself, and it tends to get worse rather than better with time. See [shame and arousal](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/why/shame-and-arousal/). The other thing worth naming plainly is the line between solo masochism and self-harm, and the difference is not severity. Consensual masochism is wanted, is looked forward to, and stops. Self-harm is a way of managing something unbearable and tends to leave you worse afterwards rather than settled. If you recognised the second description, that is worth acting on, and it does not mean the rest of what you want is a problem. > ### If this is the part you needed > > > > Samaritans are on **116 123**, free, any hour of any day, and you do not have to be in crisis to ring them. You can also text **SHOUT** to **85258** at any hour, and Mind has good written guidance at [mind.org.uk](https://www.mind.org.uk). The [get help](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/support/) page has the fuller list, including how to find a therapist who will not treat kink as the symptom. ## Read next - [Power exchange, and what is actually being handed over](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/why/power-exchange/) - [Accountability and check-ins](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/discipline/accountability/) - [Lines, corner time and impositions](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/discipline/lines-and-impositions/) - [Masochism and self-harm, and how to tell them apart](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/why/why-do-i-like-pain/) ## Sources 1. Thaler, R. and Shefrin, H. (1981). "An Economic Theory of Self-Control." *Journal of Political Economy*, 89(2). [doi:10.1086/260971](https://doi.org/10.1086/260971) 2. [StickK](https://www.stickk.com) and [Beeminder](https://www.beeminder.com), both of which operate commitment contracts with financial stakes. ## Common questions ### Does self-spanking work? Mostly not, and for three reasons worth knowing. You cannot surprise yourself, so the anticipation that does most of the work is gone. You pull the stroke without meaning to, because the arm will not override its own protective reflex. And the thing most people are actually after is handing control to somebody else, which is the one thing a solo version cannot provide. Some people get something out of it as a ritual rather than a sensation, which is a fair reason to do it, but it is a different experience from being spanked. ### Can you have a discipline dynamic on your own? Partly. Written rules, set tasks, lines and deadlines all work alone, because their effect comes from committing in advance rather than from anyone enforcing them. What does not work alone is being held to them, since you are both the person setting the rule and the person who gets to waive it. Most people who do this solo add one distant person who simply reads a weekly message, and that single change tends to be what makes it stick. ### Are accountability apps any use for this? They are useful for the compliance half and useless for everything else. Beeminder and StickK both let you put real money behind a commitment, which genuinely changes behaviour for a lot of people. What an app cannot do is notice you, and being noticed is usually the part that was wanted. Some people find that unhelpful and others find it a relief, so work out which you are before paying for anything.